The poster girl of Nigerian football, Asisat Oshoala, has been named in 100 best female footballers in the world for 2018 by the Guardian UK.

The former Arsenal and Liverpool frontwoman was the only Nigerian player that made the cut which was selected by seventy-two judges from 30 countries.

Nigerian sports writer Rachel Ugiagbe, the editor of Ultima Sportsnet, and Nigeria manager Thomas Dennerby were among the experts to have voted.

Current African Women's Footballer of the Year, Oshoala, was named the 86th best female footballer and for the sake of comparison, the Dalian Quanjian star ranked higher than Chelsea's Millie Bright, Bayern Munich's Melanie Behringer, Man City's Tessa Wullaert and PSG's Wang Shuang.

On Oshoala, the newspaper wrote : ''Oshoala’s move to China raised eyebrows but the goals have not stopped coming for the former Liverpool and Arsenal striker.

''Her form was the key factor in Dalian's second successive Chinese Super League win, a hat-trick at Shanghai putting them in control of the title race.

''The Nigerian found the net 10 times overall as her club completed the domestic double. She spent November at the Africa Women Cup of Nations, where another treble in Nigeria’s final group game propelled them to the final four. ''

Compared to the 2017 rating, Oshoala's ranking did not get better as she placed 61st last year.

Pernille Harder (Wolfsburg/Denmark), Sam Kerr (Perth Glory/Australia), Ada Hegerberg (Lyon/Norway) Lucy Bronze (Lyon/England) and Eugénie Le Sommer (Lyon/France) are the top five female footballers in that order.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel